Every morning the Sun rises a little later, & every evening our Sol sets ever earlier. Darkness takes the light, slowly into its somber realm. As we move from Virgo the Virgin, who helps us with our spiritual harvest, into the sign of the scales, Libra, we can think how it is the only constellation that is not a living creature; it owes its origin to the realm of created things, of mechanics. According to Rudolf Steiner it was only incorporated into the imagery of the Zodiac later in order to delineate the world of light in the upper signs more clearly from the 5 lower “nightly” signs. It is entirely dependent on the outer world, best expressed in its function of “deliberation”.

In ancient Greece the descent of the Sun into the Autumn region of the dark zodiac signs was seen in the image of the abduction of Persephone, stole away from her mother Demeter, by Pluto, lord of the underworld (who is active in a challenging aspect with Venus now see yesterday’s post) The Greeks hid their faces in fear from the powers of darkness & waited longingly for the return of Persephone who would awaken to new life in the Spring.

But since the descent of Christ into the shadow realm of death, in order to reconquer it for the realm of light, human beings can look at the descent into the realm of darkness in a different way – thru the image of the mighty Archangel Michael standing next to the Virgin, with her staff of life, & in former times, bearing the balance of the world in his hands – carrying the resurrection into the dark in order to realize our true human potential in the confrontation with the forces of evil.

This individuation process can only be fulfilled in the realm of earth & death – Here the human being of the present time is threatened with the danger of giving in to the lower driving forces which powerfully press in from our unconscious sense perceptions.

Here the scales, must be stepped into, to become the sign of the ‘Representative of Humanity’, appearing before our soul, pointing the way forward, to balance us between levity & gravity.

In the Zodiac it is between the grain-bearing Virgin & the death-dealing Scorpion. There is a separation of the “wheat from the chaff’ – the weighing, in the “Scales of Judgement.”

Will the being of Michael which we must enliven within ourselves, be able to maintain the balance of the world? That is the most earnest question which is spoken by his gaze. In the realm of the spirit his victory is assured, But on earth???

This question touches on our human contribution to the Michael Imagination – it has to do with the crisis of the “I”, which exists for everyone today. Is the average human being awake to this aspect? -Ready & able to work to overcome this crisis of humankind on earth?

If we take this into our soul-life we can take up this challenge, knowing that the outcome depends on our behavior, with even the smallest matters, as well as the great tests of our times. Thru this commitment we can rise to become a spiritual comrade, a co-shaper & co-creator of the divine earthly world. We are called in the Age of Michael to rise from being a ‘servant of God’ to being a ‘friend & brother/sister of Christ’ as promised in the Gospel of St. John 15:15.

In looking up to this world destiny of the human being in the dark time of the year which is now setting in, we must find the inner emphasis that is so easily lost today, because we lose our balance to the swings of the pendulum in our soul-life. The approaching winter can invoke (in some) the hum-bug that is possessed by greed, like an old man seeking to dispel the fear of death thru selfish pleasure or grabby possession. The balance of the soul swings back & forth between melancholy & self-satisfied control, until it can find its center in the true “I”.

The image of the scales can become for us the means to orient our soul & spirit at this turning point in the year.

October: “Satisfaction Becomes Serenity” or Contentment becomes Self-composure. This Virtue suggests a call to balance, not a settling in to mendacity, or a false sense of security. But a serenity in recognizing that we are just where we are meant to be in our striving.

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
MICHAELMAS IV
Michaelic Hope
v29
To have the inner fire
to kindle thinking’s radiance
and draw the meaning of experience
from worldwide spirit’s well of power
is now for me the summer’s heritage,
is autumn’s peace… and winter’s hope.

The spirit of the world has now activated the soul with Michaelic will-power, the fruit created from the soul’s darkness in the mirror verse, and now as the outer world becomes gloomier, an inner light shines, the autumn spirit presence becoming radiant with thought, the gift of the summer’s heritage.

AUTUMN PRELUDE IV
The Fruit Of Will
v24
In constant self-creation
the soul grows self-aware;
the spirit of the world strives onward
in new self-knowledge re-enlivened,
creating from the darkness of the soul
the conscious harvest of the will.

the sense of selfhood’s harvest of the will.

23 October 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”:

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – You tell me…What happened in history today, that YOU think made an impact on world karma?

1901 – Deathday of Adalbert Graf von Keyserlingk, son of Count Karl & Countess Joanna Keyserlingk, who wrote ‘Birth of a New Agriculture : Koberwitz 1924 and the Introduction of Biodynamics’ which describes the 12 day ‘agriculture course’ at Whitsun 1924 on the Koberwitz estate. They turned the castle belonging to the estate into a hospitable place with a cosmopolitan touch, which also accommodated, among others, the founding priest of the Breslau congregation of the Christian Community Rudolf Meyer for 3 years. The first Act of Consecration in Silesia was celebrated in Koberwitz.

1956 – Secret police shoot several anti-communist protesters, igniting the Hungarian October Revolution.

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I festoon the grey day
With laser eyes & fierce cackles that call the wind to deliver me
Like a seed blown home
To fertile caverns…
I smell change a-coming
Shapes turning leaves into souls
Sheathed in paper hats torn from the mundane head
Born anew into the eternal flesh
Of freedoms reign
~hag